Mets Knock Off Rocker, Extend Series

October 17, 1999|By JEFF GOLDBERG; Courant Staff Writer

NEW YORK — John Olerud finally solved the riddle of John Rocker, and the Mets live to play at least one more day.

Olerud's two-out single off Rocker in the eighth inning Saturday night drove in two runs, giving the Mets an improbable 3-2 victory and forcing a fifth game in the National League Championship Series today. The Braves still lead the best-of-seven series, 3-1.

``To come back and get the win and to get a couple runs off Rocker . . .,'' Olerud said. ``I think it's a big win for us.''

The Mets fell behind 2-1 in sudden, shocking fashion in the top of the eighth, when Brian Jordan and Ryan Klesko hit back-to-back homers off righthander Rick Reed. But the Mets managed to get runners to first and second with two outs in the bottom half. Then Olerud came to the plate.

Braves manager Bobby Cox made the obvious move, summoning Rocker, who had owned Olerud in his career, holding him hitless in nine at-bats with five strikeouts, including one each in crucial spots of the first two games in this series.

``I've tried a bunch of different approaches off him and haven't had a whole lot of success,'' Olerud said. ``I just went up there trying to get a good pitch to hit.''

Olerud gained a major advantage when Roger Cedeno, the runner at second, and Melvin Mora executed a double steal off Rocker, who essentially ignored the runners and directed his focus on Olerud.

``I've got a [bad] pickoff move, and I wasn't going to be able to do anything about it anyway,'' Rocker said.

Said Olerud: ``Well, he hasn't had a whole lot of trouble getting me out. I'm sure his main focus was throwing strikes to me.''

The Mets had been dreadful with runners in scoring position, going 3-for-18 in the series before Olerud's at-bat, but this time the Mets got the big hit. Olerud grounded one off the outstretched glove of shortstop Ozzie Guillen and into left-center.

``It was a fastball down and away,'' Olerud said. ``I hit over the top of it a little bit. When I saw it going up the middle, I didn't know if it was going to get through or not. But I was definitely rooting for it, I'll tell you that.''

Cedeno and Mora scored, and the Shea Stadium crowd of 55,872 went nuts.

Then, in the ninth, the Mets finally had a break go their way. In his bid to tie the score against Armando Benitez, Guillen hit a drive down the right field line that curved foul.

Benitez got Guillen to line to center, then retired Gerald Williams and pinch hitter Keith Lockhart to end the game.

``You get long odds on a sweep,'' Cox said. ``It's hard. We were four outs away.''

The Mets' biggest break might have been Cox's decision to pull John Smoltz in favor of Mike Remlinger with one out and Cedeno at first in the eighth. Smoltz had allowed only four hits to that point and had thrown 100 pitches.

Ironically, Cox said he made the move to keep the Mets from stealing bases, but after Benny Agbayani struck out for the second out, Cedeno stole second off Remlinger, who then walked Mora.

``Generally, he's almost impossible to run on,'' Cox said of Remlinger. ``We tried to stop him, and Cedeno stole the base.''

The Mets appeared headed for their final defeat of the season after Jordan and Klesko homered in a span of three pitches at the start of the eighth inning.

The homers ruined what had been one of the greatest postseason pitching performances in recent memory. Reed had allowed one hit through seven innings and had faced the minimum 21 batters.

But Jordan smacked Reed's first pitch of the eighth over the wall in left-center, and Klesko followed by hitting Reed's 1- and-0 offering just to the left of the Mets' bullpen. The Mets cursed the cruel twist in their fortunes but took heart when Turk Wendell relieved Reed and stopped the bleeding.

``There were a couple of things being kicked [in the dugout],'' Valentine said. ``But Turk came in and did a great job there. That's two runs with a runaway train going downhill, and he put the brakes on.''

The chief beneficiary of Atlanta's sudden scores was Smoltz, who had been nearly as dominant as Reed, his only major mistake a two-out, sixth-inning solo homer by Olerud.

The Mets first baseman, 2-for-13 in the series before the home run, now owns two of the biggest hits of the Mets' season, which rests today in the hands of Masato Yoshii, against Greg Maddux.

``The hits have been few and far between,'' Valentine said. ``I'm glad [Olerud] was hitting second [in the order] and had the opportunity to get them. It allowed us to win and play [today]. So that makes it a great breakthrough.''